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This is your brain on LSD. This is a human brain on the psychedelic drug LSD: The image comes from a new study published in the journal PNAS, which used modern techniques to map out the effects of a placebo and LSD on 20 healthy participants' brains.

The results show clear differences, with the images of the brain on LSD showing much more connectivity between different sections of the mind. This can help explain visual hallucinations, because it means various parts of the brain — not just the visual cortex at the back of the mind — are communicating during an LSD trip. "Normally our brain consists of independent networks that perform separate specialized functions, such as vision, movement, and hearing — as well as more complex things like attention," study co-author Robin Carhart-Harris said in a statement.
'It's not funny, Mr. Shkreli': Drug exec grins before Congress.

Bloomberg. Psychedelic Mushroom Compound Found to Grow and Repair Brain Cells. New Research Suggests Cocaine Can Make Brain Cells Eat Themselves. Cocaine might give users a buzz, but it could also be making brain cells eat themselves, according to new research.

While normally an important survival mechanism for the cell, at high enough doses the drug seems to make this process go into overdrive, causing cells to digest their innards to such an extent that they die. More than just contributing to our knowledge of how this drug leads to its notable toxic effects, the work could potentially offer scientists a new treatment avenue to explore.

Inhibiting this pathway with a different drug was found to protect neurons against cocaine-triggered death, raising the possibility that the same agent or something related may represent a viable therapy for cocaine abuse. The study has been published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
'Pharma Bro' Martin Shkreli's Pricing of Chagas Treatment Hurts Latinos.

After dropping $2 million on a Wu-Tang Clan album, the pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli has found a new project: making an essential treatment unaffordable for poor immigrants from Latin America.

Shkreli, otherwise known as “pharma bro,” gained notoriety earlier this year when his company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, increased the price of a drug used to treat AIDS patients from around $13.50 to $750. He’s now the CEO of KaloBios Pharmaceuticals, which recently announced its plans to submit benznidazole, a treatment for Chagas disease purchased earlier this month, for Food and Drug Administration approval next year. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that about 300,000 people in the United States have the deadly disease.
This chart reveals the inhumanity of US drug prices compared to other countries. Consumer Updates > FDA Strengthens Warning of Heart Attack and Stroke Risk for Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs. En Español Get Consumer Updates by E-mail Download PDF (301 K)

Five Mind-Blowing Facts About Psilocybin Mushrooms. One hundred and eighty species of mushrooms around the world contain the psychoactive chemicals psilocybin or psilocin.

Psilocybin mushrooms, better known as “magic mushrooms”, are one of the most popular psychedelics in use today and have a long history of use in Mexico. These mushrooms are less harmful on the body than caffeine and are not neurotoxic or addictive. Check out these five mind-blowing facts about psilocybin:
Colorado marijuana regulations signed into law. DENVER (AP) — A set of laws to govern how recreational marijuana should be grown, sold and taxed was signed into law Tuesday in Colorado, where Democratic Gov.

John Hickenlooper called the laws the state's best attempt to navigate the uncharted territory of legalized recreational pot.
We Experimented With Powdered Alcohol So You Don't Have To. On Monday of this week, Connecticut’s House of Representatives voted to ban the sale of powdered alcohol, supporting a bill that will go to Governor Dannel Malloy for approval.

Sanjay Gupta says we have been "systematically misled" on marijuanaDEA lists marijuana as a schedule 1 substance with "high potential for abuse"Most recent research on marijuana has been on its negative effects, Gupta saysStudies on marijuana require approval from National Institute on Drug Abuse (CNN) -- Over the last year, I have been working on a new documentary called "Weed.
" The title "Weed" may sound cavalier, but the content is not. I traveled around the world to interview medical leaders, experts, growers and patients.

I spoke candidly to them, asking tough questions.
34 Medical Studies Proving Cannabis Cures Cancer. How scientists rank drugs from most to least dangerous — and why the rankings are flawed. There's a very common drug-policy talking point that's meant to convey the absurdity of the war on drugs: Alcohol is more dangerous than marijuana, even though alcohol is legal and marijuana is not.

Perhaps the biggest supporting evidence for this point is a 2010 study published in The Lancet that ranked alcohol as the most dangerous drug in the United Kingdom, surpassing heroin, crack cocaine, and marijuana.
Drug researchers hide thousands of negative studies. A new campaign is trying to change that.
Imagine making a decision about whether or not to buy a new home based on seeing only half the property.

The real estate agent invites you in to look around — the bedrooms, the kitchen. But you’re not allowed to visit the dining area, and the basement is off limits. Do you buy the house?
Magic Mushrooms Change Brain Connections. Tripping on magic mushrooms may actually free the mind, a new study says. The compounds in the (illegal) mushrooms change the way the brain works. New research suggests that psilocybin, the main psychoactive ingredient in magic mushrooms, sprouts new links across previously disconnected brain regions, temporarily altering the brain's entire organizational framework.

These new connections are likely what allow users to experience things like seeing sounds or hearing colors. And they could also be responsible for giving magic mushrooms some of their antidepressant qualities. When researchers compared the brains of people who had received IV injections of psilocybin with those of people given a placebo, they found that the drug changed how information was carried across the brain.
How Brain Changes On Mushrooms. A new study finds that tripping on (illegal) magic mushrooms may change the mind by quieting traditional brain activity and jumpstarting new connections between areas of the brain that previously didn't communicate with one another.

Psilocybin, the main psychoactive ingredient in magic mushrooms, sprouts new links across previously disconnected brain regions, the study found, temporarily altering the brain's entire organizational framework. The data visualization below (b) shows how these new connections among separate regions of the brain in people dosed with psilocybin; the one on the left (a) represents the conventional connections in the brains of people not on the drug. You can see how much more connected the trippers brains are: Journal of the Royal Society InterfaceVisualization of the brain connections in the brain of a person on psilocybin (right) and the brain of a person not given the drug.

As with any drug, psilocybin doesn't come without health risks.
Single Dose of Hallucinogen May Create Lasting Personality Change - 09/29/2011. A single high dose of the hallucinogen psilocybin, the active ingredient in so-called “magic mushrooms,” was enough to bring about a measureable personality change lasting at least a year in nearly 60 percent of the 51 participants in a new study, according to the Johns Hopkins researchers who conducted it. Lasting change was found in the part of the personality known as openness, which includes traits related to imagination, aesthetics, feelings, abstract ideas and general broad-mindedness.

Changes in these traits, measured on a widely used and scientifically validated personality inventory, were larger in magnitude than changes typically observed in healthy adults over decades of life experiences, the scientists say. Researchers in the field say that after the age of 30, personality doesn’t usually change significantly. “Normally, if anything, openness tends to decrease as people get older,” says study leader Roland R.
Watch A Metaphor So Obvious That You'd Have To Be A Politician Not To Get It. 1 in 10 Deaths Among Adults Tied to Alcohol: CDC. Study also found those who died from drinking-related causes lost roughly 30 years of life Why do I need to register or sign in for WebMD to save? We will provide you with a dropdown of all your saved articles when you are registered and signed in. WebMD News from HealthDay By Kathleen Doheny HealthDay Reporter THURSDAY, June 26, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- One in 10 deaths among U.S. adults is linked to excessive alcohol consumption, federal officials reported Thursday.

While people often link drinking with deaths from motor vehicle accidents and chronic liver disease, many other conditions that can cause death are tied to alcohol, said lead researcher Mandy Stahre. "Excessive drinking is associated with a lot more causes of death than what we tend to focus on. Among them: acute pancreatitis, psychosis, esophageal cancer, breast cancer, oral cancer, falling injuries, suicide and drowning.
Fugitive Susan LeFevre. New drug could treat Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis and brain injury.

A new class of drug developed at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine shows early promise of being a one-size-fits-all therapy for Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis and traumatic brain injury by reducing inflammation in the brain.
Opium Made Easy - Michael Pollan. Cuba Announces Release of the World's First Lung Cancer Vaccine. From the island nation known for the quality of its cigars comes some pretty big news today: Xinhua reports that Cuban medical authorities have released the first therapeutic vaccine for lung cancer.
The Drug Market Scam: Why You Pay Way Too Much for Bad Medicine (And Bernie Sanders' Solution)
June 2, 2011 | Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. Drugs are cheap.

Alcohol 'more harmful than heroin or crack'
Alcohol is the most dangerous drug in the UK by a considerable margin, beating heroin and crack cocaine into second and third place, according to an authoritative study published today which will reopen calls for the drugs classification system to be scrapped and a concerted campaign launched against drink.
Alcohol Is Most Harmful Drug, Followed By Heroin And Crack.

Ask Not For Whom the Drug Tolls. DECEMBER 22, 2010 by WENDY MCELROY “Fifty years ago, it made sense to assert that mental illnesses are not diseases, but it makes no sense to say so today.
The Disastrous War on Drugs Turns 40: 5 Ways to Stop the Madness. February 11, 2011 |